


Maquillage, or, The Picture of Thomas Nightingale

by Zoya1416



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, Magical Attack, Magical Illusions, glamours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-07 11:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11622174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: In the end it turned out to be the magical equivalent of putting a flaming bag of dog crap on someone's doorstep, but that wasn't the important thing.





	Maquillage, or, The Picture of Thomas Nightingale

**Author's Note:**

> Has a spoiler for Hanging Tree.

In the end it turned out to be the magical equivalent of putting a flaming bag of dog crap on someone's doorstep, but that wasn't the important thing.  


I woke up to the sound of the bat-phone jack-hammering into my ear.  Stephanopoulos bellowed,  "Grant!  Get everyone out!  Someone's planted a bomb at your nick!"   


My thoughts cleared immediately, and at the same time I heard a firm series of knocks at my door in a repeated 1-2-3  pattern. They must have called the main Folly line as well. I had finally - _finally_ -persuaded Molly to wake me up that way instead of standing in my doorway scaring me awake.  I had tried bribing her in several ways before I found the answer to her heart.   


I had considered, very quickly, the normal gifts for a woman- jewelry, no, she never wore any.  Flowers, same.  Chocolate?  Ridiculous-she could make as much as she wanted. I didn't even think about lingerie, afraid she'd strangle me with it.  When I got serious, I considered cookbooks,  but Lesley had given her some and I didn't want to remind her.   


I was honest about it, telling her I wanted a favor, and wanted to give her a gift first. I brought her a new set of red-flowered oven gloves, hand-stitched, as a warm-up, but found them re-wrapped in my room the same afternoon. Then I tried a vegetable spiralizer, hoping that the new device would interest her. Same thing. Finally I got smart and left the John Lewis catalogue for her, saying she could have anything she wanted.  
   


I crossed my fingers for luck, hoping she didn't want an entire remodeling, but she surprised me. She left the catalogue in my room, with the page marked at a heavy commercial mixer. I wouldn't have thought of that, but apparently the one she had dated from the 1980's. Having satisfied the courtesy, I explained carefully that I really didn't like to be awakened without knocking.  She glared, but we struck a bargain on it.   


So between the phone call and the knocks I was completely awake. I yanked on my track pants and Bev's old t-shirt I'd thrown across my chair. For a half second I thought about my new dressing gown, right beside them, but then I rushed out.  I'd never worn a dressing gown in my life, but I'd been snagged by one I saw in the window at Selfridges. It was a deep turquoise green with subtle blue stitching, and white edging.  The deciding factor was an almost identical gown posed with it with more elaborate swirls of stitching. I didn't need the male and female models to get the idea. My relationship with Bev was shaky, but I wondered whether she might like it. I was keeping hers hidden in my closet but was planning on surprising Nightingale by wearing mine to breakfast.  


Molly was at the front door, hands to her mouth. I could hear Stephanopoulos shouting to her people. Toby was with Molly and—where was Nightingale? I realized that he'd not have heard the bat-phone and there were no bombs going off as yet. I raced to his door, knocked once, and dashed in, my voice flying fast.  


“Sir! We need to get out at once! Stephanopoulos says there's a bomb!”  


I turned on the room light before he could stir and my body and soul froze. There was a stranger in his bed, blinking, beginning to sit up, a bizarre fucker I'd never seen before.  


See, I know he's 117 years old. I've known his correct birthdate for some years, and all about the backward-aging. I've even seen Met pictures of him from the late 60's, with thinning hair and wrinkles, and that's really weird. But I'd never imagined this. The body's face—Nightingale's face—was shriveled and drawn, and covered in wrinkles. His nose and ears were larger, his scalp bald. Old age spots clung to his scalp. Along his arms were the bruises of extreme age, the kind old people get when they bump into things, the kind that take weeks to go away.  


I saw all this in a single glance as he sat up, glaring at me. He passed one hand over his face and it became the one I knew, the mid-forties posh and shrewd one. He licked his thin dry lips, and they refilled with the bloom of tissue and blood.  


Losing complete track of why I was here, I blurted out, “It's a glamour! You're using a glamour!”  


“Peter, why are you here?” he demanded, sitting up with a spine that had straightened from its aging curve.  


“Ah, that would be because there's a bomb. Stephanopoulos called and said we had to evacuate.”  


“Did you call Miriam back to confirm this?”  


I felt stupid. It was a rookie mistake. All it would have taken to lure me out was a simple mimic—except how would someone have gotten the Folly's direct line? That was known only to the nick commanders and—but could it have been stolen? Possibly.  


I called her on her mobile.  


“Grant, where are you people? We're covering Russell Square.”  


“Ma'am, did the caller say where the bomb was planted?”  


“No, but you haven't got all day. Get out now.”  


“I think we'll come around the back way and then join you,” I said, glancing at Nightingale's nod. He sat up in his dark green pajamas, and damn if he didn't pull on the same turquoise dressing gown I'd been hiding. I flushed for no reason.  


Nightingale rushed to Molly and put his hand on her arm. "Come with me now." She shook her head and bared her teeth. He said, "Yes, you must leave." There was a pause and I didn't see what happened after that. Once I'd crossed the rear threshold I turned in time to see him carrying her scooped in his arms. We all got out through the garage and courtyard at speed. I jammed my feet into the muddy trainers plopped just outside the back door. Nightingale, of course, had high-quality slippers, the kind with a back which stay on the feet while running. Then we rushed around the alley to Russell Square.  


I had time to catch my breath and wonder where Martin Chorley and Lesley were, now that they'd winkled us out, when the front door blew in. I ducked, closing my eyes against the dust and smoke, and wondered what the fuck had happened to the magical protections. I stared further through the dust. What was I seeing? There was an explosion of light and the heavy noise of bombs. Dust and spewed outward, either through very focused impellos or simple timing devices. Russell Square itself rocked with sound decibels louder than jet engines, and the very street vibrated.  


Sahra Guleed yelled in my ear, “It's just sound making everything shake," and of course it was. I had felt it at concerts, the heavy wave hitting your chest and literally rocking you back. I shook myself, not quite believing it, because broken masonry and wood still jammed the steps.  


Then Molly rushed forward, sharp teeth snarling, and threw the fireplace poker she must have picked up. It flew straight and true like a javelin, and it went all the way through the smashed timber and the shattered heap of rubble. It bounced off the magical protections with a sizzle of sharp sparks. She glared triumphantly as I caught my breath, suddenly realizing the truth.  


Then an especially young and stupid constable called it.  


“It's nothing—look—it's all bollocks!” He dashed away from the cordon, evading Sahra's grab for him, running across the square. We all heard him step on the land mine. That particular “click” had been demonstrated multiple times in our training, in case we met a cadre of IS nutters. No one breathed, and we heard the constable draw in a sob. There was a crack, he fell down screaming, and dust and red gore fountained upward. I concentrated really, really hard on not being sick. Behind me I could hear others not succeeding at this.  


The next second the man dragged himself away along the ground—I ground on my teeth, preparing to see his amputation, mutilation, and death. But he sat up, hands and body splashed with blood, and then stood, ran back to us, stumbling but whole.  


It was another illusion. The land mine's sound had been faithfully recorded and played when he stepped on it, and it had detonated—but at a one-hundredth charge which only fanned up the dust. The fountain of gore was dye—the same kind used in bank robberies. He'd been knocked down, though, by something unseen, which I realized was an impello. I turned away from him and what seemed to be a fireball whooshed over the cops' heads, causing them to duck. It was, again, another fake-only an amped-up werelight.  


Nightingale had turned as soon as he realized the young cop had been dropped by an impello, and gotten their range. He put up one of his stadium-wide werelights (I was so envious of those) and illuminated the whole square, and the British Museum behind us. I didn't see anyone, but the Belgravia team started running toward the museum. They had a few yards head start, but I got in front of them.  


Whether Chorley played a Jedi these-are-not-the-sick-fuckers-you-were-seeking act, or whether they really were that fast I don't know, but no rogue magicians were tracked down. Back in the square Stephanopoulos was arguing with Nightingale, and I growled as I saw Alexander Seawoll stepping out of a car to join her. Nightingale turned his head away from both of them and kept popping impellos in front of our door. Mine-sweeping, I realized. I could have done that, but I'd never had the military training to think of it. He located several of them and I watched them detonate futilely, with more dye spurting. Some packets were pink, not red, and one was an insulting blue. He continued to sweep around the square, as Seawoll turned to me and smirked at my too tight and midriff showing pink t-shirt. Then I had the joy of seeing him jump sideways when a click and then a crack! erupted behind him. His trousers were not going to recover from that bright orange, either.  


I started slowly sweeping myself, brushing the dust away with gentle impellos, and quickly uncovered a horror familiar to me from Skygarden. There was a new, shallow, channel all the way across the street, covered only with a camouflage of normal paving material. It circled around our front steps. I covered it with a shield and shouted everyone back again. We waited, and in a minute it blew up, this time with white lights and roars. I didn't move. It was the same as the mine, just dummy explosive, and flash-bangs, but we all got the message. As first responders, all the coppers would have been right there, helping our mine-struck victims while the second bombs went off.  


That was the end of it, except for the debriefings, of course. Nightingale wrangled them down to letting us dash back into to change into clothes, even though neither of us took time to shave. His tie was on correctly, though, and he was pushing in his second cufflink when we came out again.  


“Molly's safe,” he said. “She ran to the back and got in as soon as she realized it was all a show. How she saw that sooner than I did I don't know.”  


I had no idea either, but her connection to the Folly was almost a century long. Possibly this gave her the power which guided the poker—I was going to step even more carefully around her.  


It took them the rest of night to let us go.  


I couldn't forget what I'd seen, of course, which is why I didn't speak to Nightingale as he headed down the first floor corridor to his room. I didn't want to think about my boss waking up looking like a dried mummy, and I managed it for an entire 4 hours.  


I woke up in time for a late breakfast and wandered toward the dining room (clean tracksuit pants and t-shirt only), not sure what to say. Despite Molly's temporary eviction from the Folly she'd still cooked a massive meal. She had beautiful thick slices of ham—and very sharp knives beside the plates. Nightingale was sitting at the table, absorbed in the newspaper, and I had a spasm of fear when he lowered it. But he looked the same as I'd always seen him. He stared at me with a closed expression, waiting for me to speak.  


“So, about that glamour thing. You were never going to tell me?”  


He passed a hand over his face, which thankfully remained the same. I was going to have nightmares, I knew it.  


“I really am young on the inside. Abdul's checked me again and again. My body functions, muscle mass, bone density, and healing capacity are all the same as a man in his forties.”  


“No one would believe it if they saw you, though.”  


He nodded. “I—adopted this—maquillage—when I realized that was the case. I could run a marathon, but no one would believe I was in the under-50 group. I'd look like a—” he closed his mouth.  


“Freak.” I said. “Or fraud.”  


“Do you know the normal retirement age?”  


Of course I did. It kept changing, up and down as age-discrimination pension cases were tried. First it was age 60, then it was after 30 years service—there were now rumors it was going to rise to 65 for lower grades and 68 for higher officers.  


“But when you were 60, 65, there was no one else and they let you stay on?”  


He nodded. “And then when I started becoming younger—I knew that they'd let me stay on indefinitely, as long as my health was good. I felt younger and stronger, and my stamina improved year after year—but the face—didn't. I couldn't look like a pensioner. So I changed.”  


“It's a glamour. I didn't know you could do glamour.”  


He shrugged. “It's not much more than I could get with a good plastic surgeon, but I don't want to be cut on.”  


It's a lot more, I thought. When I first saw you, I wondered whether I was looking at a vampire. You looked—dead.  


“I'm—I'm surprised and—angry—that you never told me. That you didn't think I could keep a secret.”  


He winced uncomfortably. “This is—pretty close to the stage magic we saw tonight. Simple illusions are the best. It's a fill-in of lines and wrinkles, and turning my hair brown. That's about it. I didn't think it was worth talking about.”  


“Sir.”  


“Peter.” He sighed. “It's simple vanity, just as a woman has.”  


I decided to cut him some slack on the sexism for a moment.  


“And?”  


“And I could spend hours in front of a makeup table putting on powder and rouge, obsessing over every line in my forehead, or I could—apply a minute fraction of what I know to myself.”  


“Doesn't this add to—” I shut up. If exposure to magic was going to kill Nightingale, it probably would have done so decades ago, Walid's MRI's be damned.  


“I can't be retired. You know that. You're almost half-way through your apprenticeship, and when you complete it, you could possibly start teaching others, but—I can't transmit all my experience in ten years. I am a resource for you, your only resource, though god knows I wish I had others—there were others who were much better teachers than I am—and I hope to be for decades to come. I can't do that if I'm forced out of the Met.”  


“Was it hard to learn? I thought only the Rivers and some fae could do it.”  


“No, it's not that hard. It took practice, a lot of practice, just like any other magic, but the formae aren't too difficult. I could teach you, but you don't need it now, and you have other studies. Speaking of those—”  


“I'm getting good with my Latin,” I said defensively, because I was.  


He reached down for a book beside his chair. “I know you are. That's why you need this,” and handed me a copy of Homer.  


“No. You're fucking with me. I know you are. Sir, I got 4 hours sleep last night and have all my other practice to do...”  


He shrugged. “Read for a couple of hours, then do some target practice.”  


“Yeah. I definitely need to blow things up.”  


“Actually...” and he held up a package of— no-shit—werewolf and zombie posters.  


I stared at him with my mouth open.  


“Perhaps not the best time for these particular fantasies,” he said, looking a bit embarrassed, “but I thought you might like—different targets. It's all illusion, but if it helps your strength and coordination, so much the better.”  


As long as it wasn't desiccated vampires, I did not say. I'd be happy to blow up these suckers everyday.  


I took the package and left the breakfast room, going to the library.  


“You'll let me know if you have any other disguises or superpowers, right?”  


He smiled wearily and waved me on.  


I was halfway down the hall before I realized he hadn't answered my question.


End file.
